Something Media Just Can't Handle

"Socialism is better than capitalism. So say 20 percent of Americans, and another 27 percent say they can't say which is better, according to an April 9 Rasmussen poll.There's hope.

When you consider that virtually no newspaper, broadcaster, well-funded think tank, teacher, or anybody's boss or commander ever said something nice about socialism, it's remarkable that only 53 percent of us still favor rule by the moneyed class. Perhaps folks are learning how capitalism sacrifices happiness for individual gain."

The reply from el (whose kittens were featured in Friday Catblogging.) -

Nancy, I am all for socialism, but maybe what Europe and other more civilized countries have is just rationalism.

Health care and housing denied to the poor while trillions shore up bad business deals, how can THAT be rational...el | 05.24.09 - 7:09 am | #

Just think, the mogul horde is doing good just the way the previous maladministration did it. By demonstrating the kind of injustice they do economically, by slanting everything toward the moguls and away from the workers, the moguls show us that they can destroy our economy for themselves as well as every other element. Opinion turns toward positive solutions, away from conservatism's failed policies. It's all good.

Socialism seems to be a concept that the wingnuts think is associated with the violence of Soviet Union Communism, instead of the system that gives a cushion of support to members of society who aren't making it without help at a given time.

Social Security, something I now am collecting after years of paying into it, is one example of socialism. Unemployment insurance is another aspect I have appreciated, and both supported and benefited from.

The concept of taxes collected from everyone that are used to fund education, police, water systems, highways and other social needs - that is socialism. Without that function, we don't have a government. Ultimately, rejecting socialism involves gutting government, since it is the basis of the social contract that justifies our governments. That is the side of condemning 'big government' that the wingnuts try to overlook. Claims that we will lose the freedom to decide on medical treatment if it's supported by government overlooks the insurance companies' limitation of that treatment to what they approve, which is hackled by their profit motif.

It's nice that the electorate is waking up in Rasmussen's opinion taking. There's hope, indeed.